Your Privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy provides you with all the information you need to understand how and when your personal data is used and by whom.
Who We Are
This is the website for author Melissa Stoller. Our website address is: http://MelissaStoller.com.
What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It
You can access our website anonymously without logging in, creating an account, or making a purchase, in which which case we will not ask you to provide us with any personal information.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Contact Forms
Information you provide to us through our contact form is used only for purposes of handling that request. Data from those requests is not kept or stored or used for any other purpose.
Opt-in Forms
Throughout the website, you may find opportunities to sign up for newsletters, notification lists, events, or to receive free resources. When you sign up for any of these lists, we will ask you to provide us with your name and email address. We also collect some inferred data which is generated when you sign up for any of our lists. This includes, for example, your IP address and how you signed up for the list.
We keep the personal information you provide when you opt-in to a list for as long as you continue to be subscribed and unless or until you indicate that you that you no longer wish to be subscribed to the that list. Procedures for opting out of any of our lists are provided at the bottom of every email you receive from those lists. You can also email us at mlstoller@aol.com to request removal from any of our lists.
Cookies
Cookies are electronic tags that most major websites place on your computer in the process of sending your computer a file, such as a Web page. We use them in a limited fashion as well.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
In no event does the cookie we place on your computer tell us anything about your visits to other websites or your use of the Internet in any other way.
Links to Other Sites/Embedded Content
MelissaStoller.com contains links to other sites that are not under our control. Such other sites do not necessarily follow our privacy policies, and may place their own cookies on your computer. This practice is standard on the Web, and we do not control cookies placed on your computer by third parties whose advertising or links appear on our site.
Likewise, MelissaStoller.com may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
MelissaStoller.com aggregates visitor information anonymously, which provides us with data on how many visits the site receives and on which pages, where the visitor is coming from (IP address, external links, etc.), and how long they stay on the site. None of this information is attached to any user-identifiable information. We use it only to make decisions about the content we provide on the site.
Data Sharing
We will not share, sell or rent your name or address to third parties not affiliated with MelissaStoller.com. No personal information will ever be provided to outside parties for marketing, advertising or other such uses without your explicit consent, or where we are obliged to disclose such information by law.
How Long We Retain Your Data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Your Rights
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
If you have provided your information to sign up for one of our lists, you may request to receive an exported file of the data we obtained from from you and any other data provided by our mailing list service. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where We Send Your Data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Use of the Website by Minors
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires that we not knowingly collect or share personal information from children under the age of 13 without the consent of a parent or guardian. If you are aware that a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information without such consent, please contact us at mlstoller@aol.com so that we can delete such information.
Any photographs published on this site that include children have been done so with the explicit consent of a parent or guardian or are stock photos we have purchased a license to use.
How We Protect Your Data
MelissaStoller.com uses commercially reasonable precautions to protect users’ information. We do not take payments directly from the website (any such transactions would be routed through PayPal or Stripe), and therefore we do not store any such sensitive data.
Additional Questions
If you have any further questions about this policy or the use of your data, email us at mlstoller@aol.com.